"A large part of the youth believes in unbranded products": Hemal Panchamia, Fastrack

In its recently released music video Keep Trippin', Titan's youth accessories brand Fastrack tried its hand at interactive digital content. When viewed on the brand's micro-site, the video freezes in a few spots and the viewer is required to click and drag to continue viewing. At one stage, the viewer is asked to click in order to watch a provocative scene that's reminiscent of the brand's famous 'Closet' film.

The same video has also been uploaded on the brand's Facebook page and on YouTube, where it has been viewed over 1.54 lakh times. But here's the best part - on the brand's micro-site, the viewer is able to pause the film at any point, and click on a product of her choosing - say, a watch on the wrist of a person in the film - and place an order for it right there. The film has been created by 22feet Tribal Worldwide - Fastrack's digital agency.

On the communication front, Fastrack has come a long way from its launch campaign ('How many you have', 2004) to a series of films that raised many an eyebrow (for instance, Hostel, finger dance), to its most recent campaign around littering.

We took a closer look at brand Fastrack through a conversation with its marketing head, Hemal Panchamia, who has worked at Titan for over a decade.

Edited Excerpts.

Edited Excerpts

Fastrack does two types of campaigns - the kind aimed at building the brand, and the kind aimed at increasing sales. We do not mix the two. There is no clear-cut methodology to gauge if a campaign has affected sales. This can happen only when you have put a campaign on a micro-site or if you have tied up for exclusive deals with an e-commerce portal like Amazon or Snapdeal.

For our Keep Trippin' music video, we have seen that though sales numbers are not very high, our products have been viewed a lot. We can track the number of customers interacting with the products, and also the duration that they do so for. We find that though the bounce rate is quite high, viewers are spending a minimum of two and a half minutes on the video.

Digital remains one of our most important platforms, even though the contribution of digital to sales is not very large yet. While we used to spend five per cent of our marketing budget on digital two years ago, now it has increased to 15 per cent.

We do not intend to follow them. It's like our brand philosophy - 'Move On'. If their preferences change, they should move on too. We want to remain true to the 18-year old.

Our TG comprises 15-25 year olds, but our sweet spot lies within the 18-21 years bracket; in fact, almost 80 per cent of our sales comes from this core TG.

We are not an inclusive brand. We are not trying to get larger masses to buy into our attitude. It's like a college... where one may not conform to the trend, but will look up to those who do. So those who don't indulge in our products may just emulate those who do.

For us, a tier two city is no less urban than a tier one city. One of our largest markets is Pune; it is among our top five markets. And a good chunk of our sales comes from Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Coimbatore.

With the burst of social media, the barriers have been broken, and accessibility is not a concern any more. At Fastrack, we launch our outdoor campaigns in the top 30 cities of India. We cannot 'dumb down' our campaigns for consumers in tier two and three cities.

We did a launch campaign in around 20 cities just after we forayed into the helmets segment. But then we went silent. We decided to increase our reach first. We plan to ramp up our distribution. When we first launched the helmets range, they were available only in Fastrack stores. Now, they are available across multi-brand outlets and e-commerce portals.

We will roll out a big outdoor campaign for our helmets in December.

Our revenues come primarily from our watches. Around 70 per cent of our sales comes from watches, 15 per cent from sunglasses, and the rest, from other products. Helmets are too small to be mentioned right now.

We never intended to be mass. But we have always been aspirational. As long as we continue to be relevant to the youth, we have no threat. The youth is not loyal.

Most of the communication on part of premium brands, if you notice, is very passive.

Increasing the price would not work for us; it is not a solution.

Our competition is any and everything, including the cafes and the pubs that youngsters spend their time and money on. The average disposable income has gone up, but the source is still largely the money given to them by their parents.

There is a large part of the youth that believes in unbranded products. We have kept our products affordable only so that we can get these consumers to switch to Fastrack. To them we say, "Look, if you are anyway buying off the street, why not pay a slight premium and get branded fashion accessories?"

We do not do any research. Instead, we go the other way round; we formalise a big plan, and then do some research to validate it. Even when we decided to launch helmets... it happened because someone said the helmet is not looked at as a 'cool' thing, that it's a 'boring and forced' thing. So we spoke to people, chalked out a business plan and then did some basic research.

Many times our research has given us a result that is not what we hoped for. But then we have gone ahead and done it (the product launch or brand strategy that we wanted to do in the first place), anyway. So, you can say we do not believe in research. We believe in instinct and gut feeling.